Neurotic Pink: Coat-Girl Saga
by Neurotic Pink
Summary: An AU story about various events while working with Overwatch, re-imagined from the point of view of a highly neurotic Zarya who negatively perceives almost every situation she finds herself in. (I just exaggerated her canon traits a bit and barely changed anything else. Oh, and she's also dating Tracer.) In this series of events, Zarya meets Mei for the first time.
1. The Day I Met Coat-Girl

Summary: Mei just joined Overwatch. Zarya has her eye on her.  
Warnings: Lots of F-bombs, dark humor, and a character death.  
Notes: Zarya and Tracer are in an established relationship but aren't married; Zarya refers to her as her wife to be cute.

(#1)

Overwatch received a new recruit today, and every time a new recruit is brought on, all the others would attend a meeting to introduce themselves to them so they feel welcome. This is actually your first meeting, but you're just as excited and eager as everyone else to welcome the new hero.

You sit with your wife, Tracer, in the Oasis University conference room. You're all the way in the back because as the tallest, you can easily see over everyone else's head. Your wife can't, but she seemed to have found a way to see by looking between some heads.

Winston finally takes the podium as the room settles down. "Thank you for coming today to welcome our newest Overwatch recruit, Mei-Ling Zhou."

Nobody is with him. The heroes look around the room, yourself included. Even Winston is looking.

He lost the recruit, you think. How is that even possible?

"…Oh, Sorry!"

You jump a bit and quickly look next to you, and see a woman wearing an oversized coat and thick rimmed glasses, as she rose from the seat beside you that she had apparently been in the entire time to scramble to the front of the room, tripping twice over her own feet in the process (full trips too; she hit the floor face first both times).

How did you not see her there? When did she get there? How can she be cold in Iran? That couldn't be the new recruit, you think. You're pretty sure it's supposed to be Doomfist.

As you look around and realize everyone was, in fact, offering their introductions to the one in the coat, you turn to your wife for a moment. "Who even is she?"

"I'unno, love, but she seems like a nice gal. A bit clumsy, though." Tracer responds. "I'm sure Winston recruited her for a good reason."

You learn throughout the meeting that the coat girl is a Chinese ecologist, and you hear about what happened to her right before she joined Overwatch. While the room was abuzz with chatter for the past few minutes, there was a sudden silence that filled it after that story.

You hear Lucio across the room break it. "DAYUM!"

Your wife exchanges a silent nod of agreement with you. You had seen some things in the past few years yourself; you fought omnics and protected your country, seen hundreds of people die in hundreds of horrible ways, and don't forget the time you ripped a particle cannon off a fucking tank with your bare hands… but somehow, Mei had a uniquely dark experience.

In spite of that, she could giggle like a child mid-way through telling the story, and you're pretty sure it was that, not the actual story, that unsettled almost everyone in the room.

"It's no big deal," Mei answers Lucio with another laugh. "As the saying goes, 'Shit happens'."

—-

Lucio has apparently established a personal radius of space between himself and Mei. He reacts almost like a repelled magnet to maintain that radius. At the moment he's with you and Tracer in the university cafeteria. Tracer took your food as usual, because you always drink a protein shake for lunch (and you think she needs to gain a few pounds anyway). She's talking a mile a minute with frog boy, and you'd tuned them out a while ago in favor of some introspective daydreaming.

Your eyes tend to wander when you do this, usually to focus briefly on a wall, then a different wall, then a person walking by… and now your wandering eyes are stuck on coat girl (still wearing the coat? Seriously?) on the other side of the cafeteria. Symmetra and are with her. You note that they seem to be having a casual conversation, and other than the coat (you wonder for a second if it fits you), Mei seems pretty normal.

You could be mistaken, you think. Perhaps when everyone first met her, she was just nervous. People laugh when they're nervous. They smile. They wear coats indoors. That's a thing, right? You're sure it is.

Your wife pauses her conversation to give you a jarring nudge to the side. You playfully shove her back and she nearly falls over, but bounces back upright instead. She attempts to retaliate with a shove of similar force, but can't move you. As she continues desperately to do so, she asks, "Oi, Aleks, what are you starin' at? That's rude."

You respond absently, "Where do you think she got it?"

"…What? Who?" Tracer tries to follow your gaze and realizes you're looking at Mei. She raises an eyebrow. "…The coat?"

"It's really nice, I just… I…"

You can't finish your thought before an unusual alarm rings in your ear. An emergency mission? Tracer, Lucio, and your earpieces begin to beep, signalling an incoming message. You're sure , Symmetra, and Mei were also called, as they had also stopped their conversations to listen. Athena asks the six of you in the cafeteria to report to the briefing room immediately.

—-

" _THIS_ was an _emergency_!?" You bleat out in frustration when the drop ship lands and the six of you find that you've been dispatched to Hollywood to escort a very expensive car into a nearby warehouse. What a waste of your ability, you think, as you all approach the set where the payload was waiting.

You walk slowly behind the other five with your cannon over your shoulder, grumbling, anything resembling a good mood that you might have had evaporated in the California heat…

…and you suddenly register that fucking Mei is still wearing her coat. _Seriously?_ Forget Mei getting a heat stroke, you were about to die of one just from looking at her and trying to imagine how absolutely steaming the inside of that coat must be right now.

Your wife notices your discomfort and falls back a bit so she could walk beside you. "Believe me, I think this is just as stupid as you do, love."

"It's not that," you answer under your breath, motioning toward coat girl. Tracer catches on, reacting like she'd been slapped in the face.

"What in the…"

The two of you can hardly begin discussing your theories before you reach the set, cautiously standing around it and checking your surroundings first. One can never be too aware.

Lucio is the first to approach the payload itself. "Area looks clear to me, guys, let's go." Just as he finishes saying that and reaches to touch the car, your eyes catch a glass-like glint beneath it.

"Wait!" You try to stop him, but he kicks over the strange device and it shatters, releasing a dense, purple cloud of gas that chokes the DJ and puts him in a coughing fit.

Thinking quickly, you swing your cannon off your shoulder and project one of your barriers onto him. Lucio catches his breath and thanks you, the bubble allowing him to breathe fresh air long enough to recover.

You don't have to look at your wife to know that she's already put off. She knows what you saw too; a venom mine. That only means one thing…

…and it finally reveals itself, jumping from atop a building, somersaulting, and landing dramatically on one knee to meet the six on the set.

(Widowmaker. It's Widowmaker. She's the one with the mines.)

" _Amelie_ …" Your wife greets the other woman with an ominous glare and tone that suggests a history with her.

" _Lena_ …" The spider-woman responds, her tone just as dry and cryptic.

You have no idea what to say, or even how the two could know each other, so you back up a few steps (like the other four of you) and look on as they stare each other down. You realize how ironic it is that the set you're on is of a western style movie and nearly snicker.

There's no reason to draw weapons yet, you think, as you rest your weight against your idle cannon, but you're still ready to react. You quickly do a head count of your team… five, including you.

Where the fuck did Mei go? You couldn't miss that woman in that gorgeous coat. She definitely isn't here.

"What do you want with this car?" Your wife asks the spider-woman, a bit dramatically for the situation.

"I have no idea, but I was paid to make sure you don't move it from this lot." The oxygen-deprived sniper responds, swinging her hips as she playfully looks at your wife through her rifle's scope.

That's when you hear a noise in the distance. You notice that Lucio, Symmetra and heard it too, but can't tell what it is. It doesn't sound like a gun…

But you see the source of the noise coming toward you at what you can only assume is nearly the speed of light. You dive to the floor just in time for the object to graze the highest standing hairs on your head, and you look up just in time to witness, in pure horror, what it is.

It's an icicle, nearly a foot long and rock solid. And it's currently impaling Widowmaker's skull. Your wife is just staring in shock, a splatter of blood across her face and torso. Her eyes follow the lifeless body as it drops to the ground and bleeds out at everyone's feet. There's a long, silent pause…

"Sorry!"

It echoes from nearby, and you finally see that Mei had been watching the whole thing from the roof of a saloon. "Oh my Kaplan, I thought we were gonna fight, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"

None of you can talk after that. You walk solemnly alongside the payload with your wife, who hasn't bothered to clean her face off. Lucio tries to keep the mood up with music as he rides atop the car, his rollerblades covering the roof and windshield with dents and scratches. That was the first time any of you learned what Mei was even trained with, and you were all fairly intimidated by the tiny woman in the oversized coat.

When the party reaches Mei and she rejoins the group, you flinch violently as the sound of her jumping from the shingles of the saloon breaks the awkward silence. Tracer outright yelps in reaction. Then it's silent again.

—

The mission runs smoothly without the actual reason you were called there in the way, and you're back in Iran before you know it. You and your wife are over what you saw and happily playing a video game together in the recreation room of the university. is watching over your shoulder and cheering you on as the cute, fluffy bear-like creature on your side of the board mauls your wife's fluffy animal to bloody shreds on screen.

"Oh come on, don't sweep my team again!" Tracer complains. Hana laughs and answers before you can.

"You keep using Pokemon that are weak to this Pokemon! You gotta consider the comp, just like in training!"

"How do you even know that?" You ask.

"I've played all 143 generations of this series. The types matter," Hana explains. "Well, after generation 91, you could barely keep track of the meta because there were so many species…"

You know you asked the question, but your attention can wander sometimes, and as Tracer and discuss the game you had been playing, you wander right out of the recreation room. They know you well enough not to find it odd that unless the topic is lifting(and it rarely is), you tend to bore quickly.

It's already night and the view of the stars from Oasis is breathtaking. Your wandering ends outside of the campus and on a bench facing acres of terrace gardens and farms, backlit by the moon. The sound of cars zooming by on the nearby highway soothes you in a strange way, and you focus on it and lose track of time. There's nothing specific you're thinking about; you're just going over mental snapshots of the day, letting yourself really take it all in.

You realize that even in a country like this, it got reasonably cold when the sun was gone. After the mission earlier, you had changed out your energy suit for a tank top and cargo shorts for lounging about your current watchpoint for the evening, and that's what you still wore now.

Some kind of jacket would be really nice to have, you think. A particularly cool breeze hits you and makes you shudder.

"Are you cold?"

You feel like you've been especially jumpy today as your body jolts upright once again from the sudden surprise. Mei has been sitting with you. You have no idea how long she's been here but holy shit, she just scared the Kaplan out of you.

Her face shows extreme remorse at this. "I'm sorry! Oh gosh I'm sorry…"

"No, I'm fine," you answer her original question a bit snappily, her 'sorry's having become noise to you by the hundredth or so sorry. You were really curious about her when you first were introduced at the meeting, but the Hollywood incident conditioned you to where everything about the woman triggers your fight-or-flight response.

" _Zarya_ …"

You have no idea how she knows your name, but it gives her your full attention. You look respectfully at her and note that she had left her gloves inside, but is still wearing… yeah.

Her hands are visible, though, (with really nicely done nails, you also notice) and as your eyes follow their movement, they light up with life at what they're seeing.

"You are not a very good liar." Icicle girl laughs. She undoes the buttons of her coat's breastflap and you really can't believe she's actually doing it, honestly.

Mei is seriously taking off her coat. You repeat it mentally over and over. You're thoroughly convinced that right now you're witnessing history, and you're beyond honored and awestruck to be.

She has to stand to get the last of the buttons, but you're frozen in place. What happens next is even harder to believe for you.

"Here, this will warm you up for now." The coat is completely off of her shoulders, and she's holding it out to you.

Your heart is actually pounding as you stare at the offering. You aren't sure you're really seeing this. You can be gullible sometimes with the others, and a select few love to use that against you. (like on Christmas; remember Christmas? That was _bullshit_.)

You wonder if Tracer might have put her up to this and look around the garden to see if she's hiding and watching, but you can see her and 's sillhouettes in the recreation room window.

This could be genuine, you realize, and against your better judgement, you accept that for which you longed for all day long with an absent "Thank you…" Your thumbs run over the soft fur lining it and it's just as soft as it looked when you were watching Mei creepily earlier at lunch. You jump up from the bench, holding it at arms length to admire its details up close.

Icicle girl can only watch and giggle as you trace your fingers over the patterns on the sleeves…. but her look of joy quickly becomes confusion as they suddenly clutch the sleeve and tear it from the coat. You get to work ripping that annoying fucking coat to shreds, stray bits of fur flying through the air in Mei's vision.

You might have thought it was beautiful, but you knew this was more important. When the coat has fully transitioned into a pile of fluff in your palms, you shove the remains toward the other woman.

"Oh, _Sorry_."

You overly mock her when you say it, dusting your hands of stray animal hair. You start to walk back toward the university, but remember something else.

You turn to Mei one last time to find her still in the same position, her sweatshirt covered in blue and white threads and hairs, her eyes wandering the floor. Even so, she's devoid of any emotion that signals to you that what you did _bothered_ her at all. She's simply… standing there.

You point threateningly nonetheless, your accent thick with sincerity. "And don't you _ever_ come near me, _OR_ my wife, again."

You see her eyes flicker in your direction but she doesn't move. With that, you go back inside the university building, your posture dominant and your pace unhurried.

You know guilt when you see it. Your friends' suspicions are warranted and her near-sociopathic reaction to you is enough to prove that.

You may be gullible with your friends, but you remember the icicle that almost had to travel through your skull to go through Widowmaker's.

Her innocent smiles and soft voice don't fool you for a moment. You're Mother-fucking Russia.


	2. The Revenge of Coat-Girl

Summary: Zarya gets a few hours with Tracer. Mostly fluffy exposition on their relationship and segue into the next 'episode'.  
Warnings: Two women getting _really_ cuddly. Hints of sexual content but not outright and explicit. Plenty more cursing.

(#2)

Your wife is spending the night with you in your dorm and after you use her for some bench presses (You do it all the time, and while she's laying as still as possible for you she catches up on her emails or youtube subscriptions), you render your workout pointless giving in to splitting a pint of ice cream with her on the couch.

You sit with your legs up and she sits in your lap, as per usual. Once the pint is emptied and discarded, she snuggles up into your arms. You watch an episode of a crime drama together as she idly grabs handfuls of your shirt and fidgets with the fabric between her fingers and thumb. She can't ever seem to stay completely still, so even when you do manage to calm the blinking, bouncing and twirling, she has to paw and claw at you like a kitten or she loses it.

You bathed hours ago, but you couldn't get every last fiber of evidence off of you, and Lena manages to find a small clump of blue material clinging to you. You watch her roll it between her fingers, and you hope she can't hear that your heart rate just rose a few bpm. Maybe shredding a coat made of millions of hairs into such fine pieces wasn't a wise idea, but you can get hot headed, and you already rationalized what you've done in the shower.

What you _haven't_ done is mention it to Lena at all, and you don't want her to get the wrong idea if she somehow recognizes it…

She flings it off somewhere and goes back to picking at your shirt's threads. _Okay_ , you think. _You're safe now._

You try to forget about it and watch the television. Another commercial break starts, and you take the opportunity to hug your tiny wife flat against you. She squirms and giggles in your embrace, and settles again when you start to run your fingers through her spiky hair, massaging and scratching her head.

You chuckle and joke, "Are you my wife or my cat?"

Her giggling starts up again and she purrs against your chest. "Am I allowed to be both?"

"Sure," you say, lifting her chin to look at you. "But I only kiss my wife."

She's still giggling, but she can compose herself long enough to hold your gaze. You're both lost in one another's eyes for a moment.

You only realize she's been closing the space between your mouths when you feel her breathy response against your lips. "Then I'll be your wife for right now."

The only times you ever show real affection is behind closed doors, and the two of you are often separated for missions that sometimes keep you stationed overseas for months. When you do get dispatched together, you're both still so busy training and fulfilling duties on site that finding even a few minutes to see each other during meal times is like taking a vacation for both of you.

It's really tough balancing a job like yours with a relationship, but for you, eventually getting this kind of time with Lena, even for one night, is worth waiting any amount of time for.

This time around it was a really long wait for you both, and it's more than obvious in the way your tender kisses escalate into feverish nipping and groping that neither of you care how the TV show is about to end. She whimpers your name into the air when your lips abandon hers for her neck, and soon you discover that so much as grazing her skin with your nails makes her writhe from overstimulation.

Just like that, your patience runs out, and you find yourself gathering your breathless wife up in your arms, refusing to break your teeth's contact with her shoulder as you stumble to your bed.

—

You suddenly remember to tell Tracer what you did to Mei during breakfast, and she nearly chokes on her food.

"What!? But I thought you _liked_ the bloody coat!"

You're staring past her as you sip your coffee and collect your thoughts. Finally you respond, your voice gravelly with the fatigue of war(or maybe just the sex you had last night). "I did what was necessary, what could not be avoided."

Your wife rolls her eyes but can't resist chuckling. "Aleksandra…" You sigh at the hint of irritation in her tone.

"I did like it… but I could not be sure if I would ever have that opportunity again, so I destroyed it as quickly as I could."

You notice she's still looking at you expectingly as she eats a piece of buttered toast, and you add, "Also, it was too small for me. It a lot looked bigger on her."

"Love…" Your wife is just staring and you can't fathom at what. From her incredulous expression, you can tell Tracer has zero awareness of the danger she's in. "Please, if only for me, leave the poor girl alone. We just met her less than 24 hours ago. You haven't known her long enough to hate her so much."

"I do not _hate_ her," you correct your wife. "She tried to _kill_ me. I only seek to _destroy_ her before she can succeed, and go on to do further harm to those I love." You love the word "destroy". It's a strong word, strong like you.

Tracer gets up from the table to wash her dishes, and you pause your speech for a sip of coffee.

"…By destroying the coat, I demonstrated my power to her. It was my warning to her."

She comes back around and leans against the chair you're sitting in when she's done, nearly dressed to go train.

"Right, 'don't touch my wife', I know. I just think you're being impulsive, love." She kisses your forehead, then your cheek. "I gotta blink outta here, but promise me you won't instigate problems?"

You give your wife a begrudging nod. "I promise I won't instigate any problems."

You watch her finish getting ready from the table, then wave her off from the door when she leaves. As you close the dormitory door again, you repeat your promise to yourself.

 _You_ won't be instigating any problems, but if Mei does, you'll definitely be _solving_ some problems.

—

Your training group is scheduled a little after Lena's group, so you have time for some cardio before then. You stretch all your muscles (of course), then drop down for push-ups.

You mentally count them in Russian. _один… два… три… четыре…_

At the same time, you're thinking about where you are in your life. No particular reason, just something you tend to reflect on a lot.

You think about the way you met your wife, and how everything just fell together to allow for it. You smile to yourself when you remember the first time you shared a hotel room for a mission. There were two beds, but she insisted you just use one. You had no idea she was even into you until that night, and you don't think you would have changed the way you found out.

You've both been going strong for a year now, even if the total amount of time you actually had with one another was barely a few months. Everyone knows about it, Winston even knows, but every time he separates you, he reminds you time and time again that he doesn't actually understand the emotions involved.

" _Zarya, this is Winston. What's your location?_ "

Speak of the devil… or think of the devil? Winston calls you through your headpiece just as you finish your set. You sit up on the floor catching your breath before you answer.

"This is Zarya, on my way to training in ten minutes."

" _That won't be necessary. Take the day off. You're suspended._ "

"…Oh." Your heart sinks.

That's right. You probably should have thought about what was going to happen to your _job_ yesterday…

—

For a few minutes, you pace around your dorm, and all you can do is picture Mei, that psychopath, running teary-eyed to Winston, and how exaggerated she probably acted to cause this. You've been punished when, in your opinion at least, you did the right fucking thing.

You catch a glimpse of the training grounds from one of your windows and look to see if you can make out your wife from this floor. Maybe just seeing her out there will calm you down…

Oh! You can make your tiny wife out as she blinks all over the field, apparently practicing her strafing. You can barely see her, but you can follow her by the blue trail of light behind her. You smile; just knowing she's close always makes you happy. And look at her go, she's so talented!

You do look at her go… right into a wall of ice that, from your distance, appears to just materialize from nothing. You forget to breathe when you hear the voice echoing into the sky…

"Oh Kaplan, I'm sorry!"

You just want to leap from your window and suplex her back to China. It enrages you so quickly, you can't even help it when the next thing you say falls from your mouth.

"That _fucking_ _cunt_ touched my wife."

It looks like Ice Bitch has officially instigated some problems for you to solve.


	3. Coat-Girl 3: Mother Russia At Rest

Summary: Zarya attempts to cope with some mental turmoil by herself. Eventually she lets her friends and loved ones help.  
Warnings: You'll spend most of your time observing a broken woman. _(Jeff Tapdancing Kaplan, Zarya, you can be a drama queen sometimes.)_

(#3)

After discovering you've been forced to take a three day vacation, you don't want to leave your dorm in the mood you're in, so you lift some weights for a bit and take another shower.

When you're done gelling your hair and putting on some especially red lipstick, you pose and flex in front of the mirror for a while. Look at your fucking arms; you're a regular brick house and sometimes you can't even believe how amazing you actually are.

You slap one of your biceps and say to your reflection, "See this? That's right. Get on my level." You lock eyes with yourself in the mirror. "Hah, look at your face. You know you can't!"

Chuckling to yourself, you browse through a container under the sink full of nail polishes and pick out a new color. That's something else to kill a few more minutes.

You bring some of your manicure supplies with you to the kitchen and set up to paint your nails, and you notice that even though you're pretty sure you feel better than before, you can't shake the homicidal fantasies dancing through your thoughts. As you coat your nails with a base coat and then tint them blood-red (Like the only color your mind's eye can currently see) one by one, you remember how Lena called you 'impulsive'.

You always thought of yourself as someone who thinks everything through. You had all day to learn Mei was evil, and you're not dumb; a day's enough time. Lena didn't know what she was talking about, and you already saw how oblivious she was to Mei's dark ways.

Mei probably thinks you didn't see what she did. Your eyes narrow as you replay it in your mind. You can't imagine whether your wife has just a concussion or even a face anymore; she hit the wall like a fly on a windshield.

Why the hell did Mei think that was even a good idea? Why was she even out there on the running field?

Because she's fucking evil, you remind yourself, and you're gonna make sure you show Winston that suspending you was part of her plan.

Even saying her name in your mind sends you right back into the state of stress and anger you began with. A drop of your nail-polish falls from your brush and stains a placemat on the table.

You find yourself staring at it, watching gravity settle the liquid into the material. More stains appear, and you realize your hands have been shaking.

You feel almost like you can't relax until you see real blood.

—

Since you don't have to train, you're in the Oasis cafeteria by yourself at the table you usually take, in your hoodie and sweatpants. You've been really favoring red all day and you wear it like a venomous animal would display its warning markings. Lunch is starting really soon, and other Overwatch agents are trickling in to sit down after training.

You try to avoid eye contact, but the only way to do that is to rest your head in your arms like a sick school kid… still, you choose to do it.

For the past month you've been here in Iran with only half of the Overwatch crew you're familiar with, and mostly women. Not that it's a complaint, but not having men like Reinhardt or Jack (Or even Torbjorn, you'll take him too) at the watchpoint to talk to turns you into a bit of a brooding introvert.

You're not much of a small talker; you tend to talk when you actually have something to say, and _nobody_ here cares about weightlifting. (You've already reminded everyone at least twice that you bench more than they do, and nobody cares; most of them just acknowledge the truth of the statement.) You consider the others your friends, of course, and they love and respect you just the same, but you just don't really have a lot of compatible interests. (Except, of course, with your wife.)

More agents are starting to show up and your eyes search the doorways for Tracer from under your hood. You stick out among the others in their various training getups. You feel almost like you're wearing a prisoner's uniform in comparison, like everyone knows _exactly_ why you're wearing this. You wonder who the ape told about the suspension.

 _That fucking ape_ , you think. You can't even believe sometimes that you live in a world where you answer to one. He's not even a cute one you can coo at either. You laugh mentally at your jabs.

"Oi, Aleks, is that you?" The familiar voice brings you back to the cafeteria. Wow, not even your wife recognizes you in these clothes?

You straighten up in your seat when you hear her, looking all around the room. She skips in from the doorway leading to the infirmary and bounces into her usual seat next to you, pointing proudly to the blood-soaked gauze taped to her face.

"Look! I broke muh nose!" She beams. "Had a bit of an accident on the field. Needed a good thirty stitches just to stick it back to my face!"

"I can see that, good job." Even in your sour mood, her excited delivery of the news makes you chuckle. You both like to laugh injuries off and even show them off like this to one another. 'No pain, no gain', is one of your mantras, after all.

You try to act like you're learning about it for the first time as you inspect the dressings Mercy administered to your wife. It's a bit worse than you thought, honestly. She probably can't take this stuff off for at least three weeks, probably longer…

There's a few seconds of silence and your eyes start to wander as you almost lift off into thought-space again. There's just so much on your mind.

Tracer seems to sense it without even having to ask, and you feel her pull one of your hands into hers under the table. It snaps you back out of your thoughts and you turn your head to her again, surprised.

She's never held your hand in the open, and especially not while she's on training duty.

"Aleks, I know the next few days are gonna be hard. I heard about the suspension," she says in a low, somewhat nasally voice only you can hear, looking down at your hands in her lap. As she talks to you, she fidgets with your fingers, admiring your newly painted nails. "You look positively miserable, love… Is there anything your wife can do?"

You squeeze her hand a bit after hearing that, like you just felt a jolt of pain. You feel like not piledriving the new Overwatch recruit from the roof of the university caused Tracer's broken nose, and she doesn't even care; her concern right now is you. It almost overwhelms you.

"You need to rest so you don't aggravate the injury. Let me take care of you." You try to smile to reassure your wife. "I am free this weekend, after all…"

"Love… That's the only thing I can't do." Tracer sighs. "But I can come spend the night at your dorm again tonight! How's that sound?"

"You have medical clearance with that?"

"Eeehh, technically." She winks. You were really hoping she didn't insist on it like you're pretty sure she did, but you know that's selfish. You actually really respect the ambition.

The background noise of others in the cafeteria slowly dies down as time passes and people start to leave for more training. You know you have to let your wife go back to work soon and figure out what to do with yourself while you rot for 72 more hours.

"I gotta run," she says, as she starts to pull your hands apart. She gives yours one last reassuring squeeze. "Just hang in there for me til' tonight, all right?"

—

You spend the next few hours quietly roaming the campus of the empty university, bored out of your mind. There is a look on your face that you haven't had since your Russian Defense Force days. You're bereft of emotion, your eyes pierce through everyone, and you have this pretty ridiculous, distant tone in your voice, like a sagely guru from a movie. (It could be argued that your hood over your head is enhancing the vibe.)

You can't touch any equipment while you're suspended, so the gym's off limits. That might possibly be the worst thing about this, you think. You have to sit around by yourself for hours, watching as the other heroes go about their duties. There's no particular TV series for you to binge on like some, no friends on the internet to waste your time with. You have almost three days where you're going to have to spend the majority of your time with nothing but your thoughts, roaming the watchpoint like some kind of stray animal.

For someone like you, this is beyond punishment; this predicament is torture, and you're considering reporting Winston to Public Relations.

When your emotions run high like this, you have to remind yourself a lot that humans aren't designed for so much stress, and it will make you act a bit off. As you find a seat outside on a bench and watch some heroes train on the other side of the field, you think of something Lena once said to you.

 _ _You're allowed to be frustrated._ _You're allowed to show emotions_. You've gone through a lot, Aleks, and all it ever does is make you stronger and smarter_.

Even so, sometimes you forget how important it can be to face them, to let them run their course, and you become this Siberian bear of a woman when you finally give in, high-strung with anxiety and ready to swing at anyone.

You don't like that about yourself…

"WTF, Zarya?"

You try so hard not to jump, so so hard, but you do. You don't know how much time you spent daydreaming this time, but now 's come to engage you. She had wandered over to your bench with her Meka following behind her, and you're not sure how long she's been standing there. (This is just normal for you, huh?)

All you can really do is stare attentively right now. She sits with you and stares back, an eyebrow raised.

"You've been acting weird all day. Reeeally weird. I've been watching you…" She shoves you gently. She doesn't let you respond before she's back on her feet, tugging on one of your hood's drawstrings.

"C'mon, let's talk. You look like you need it. I just finished for the day."

At first you're reluctant, but as you follow the younger girl off the field and to the recreation room(It's one of her favorite places to hang out), you decide Hana might actually be the perfect person to vent to right now.

"Okay… I'm just gonna be honest," Hana says, staring into her phone thoughtfully, after she takes in about five uninterrupted minutes of your problems.

You prepare yourself for her judgement. You just bore your deepest, darkest secrets to her, something you don't do with just anybody. You're confident that she'd be just as candid with you, like the good friend you've always known the girl to be.

"…I think Mei's a bitch too."

Your eyes are as wide as saucers. You weren't expecting her to agree…

"I still don't get why you had to 'destroy the coat!'" She jokingly mocks your voice as she says it, "but thanks for doing that. Feels good knowing that was you."

Hana snickers, thumbing through a website. She adds after a pause, "I figured it was when she told everyone. She was playing it off like a victim. Winston's 'concerned for her safety' around you, lol."

You look at the metal device you've been squeezing over and over in your hand; you found it in a crate of equipment, and even exercising your hand is cathartic. "He should be. She broke Lena's nose. She is due for a broken face." Your voice deepens. "I will reposition it to the back of her skull with my fist."

"Damn, you really do hate her," Hana glances up at you. "That sounds fuuucked up. Holy shit, Zarya." She goes back to scrolling, mumbling, _"jeff kaplan, is that what war does to people… brains all over the place… i can't fucking un-see that now…"_

You shrug. "It's how I feel. You told me to tell you _everything_ going through my mind."

She nods and laughs as she puts her phone away, standing up and walking over to a ball rack near the two of you. "Yeah yeah. Come over here and reposition these. Beating the shit out of something is supposed to help you calm down. I just read a Tumblr post about it."

As you follow 's lead and inspect the different sport balls available to you, you wonder how you didn't think of that yourself. She finds a basketball she likes and passes it to her Meka, which dribbles it and bounces it back to her.

You pick up a volleyball and turn it around in your hands. Hana sees this and encourages you. "Yeah, what you need is some of that rigorous physical activity! I know you. Hit the ball as hard as you can, it'll feel good."

Your eyes narrow as you stare at the ball. You don't even see it anymore. You're holding Mei's stupid, ugly head, and she's laughing right to your face.

"You're such a raging bitch, Zarya! Hahah!"

You scowl at her. "Why did you try to kill me!?"

She gives you a sarcastic look of guilt, and your grip on her tightens as you hear her answer. "You know how the saying goes… Shit happens. Right?"

Your heart rate is climbing right now, and you're shaking a little, and is staring _hard_ , but you're not even in the room with her anymore.

"Hahahah, just you wait. I'm gonna get you fired! And then I'm gonna take your position…" Ice Bitch smugly grins. "… _and_ I'm gonna fuck your wife."

Wow. She went there. She really did. You're done listening to this.

Your blood-red nails dig into the volleyball and burst it, and you tear the deflated material in half. " _NO YOU'RE NOT!_ " You throw the ball to the floor and crush it under your shoe, then shoot a dirty glare right to .

She throws up her hands. "Look, I have no idea what just happened, I'm not judging you… but let's switch to pillows before you wreck all of those…"

—

Hana is a great friend, you think, as you're on your way back to your room for the evening. You don't bother to pick every single bit of stuffing and down off of you after you ruined three pillows, so as you're walking, you leave a dotted trail of fluff in your wake.

You don't really notice the omnic following you with a vacuum, either, and thank Kaplan for that.

You kind of regret forgetting to find out what Mei's said and done while you haven't been able to watch her, but you're too excited to see your wife to care about her for the moment. When you get to your door and put your thumb on the handle to unlock it with your fingerprint, a message on the small screen above it informs you that Lena already stopped by.

Maybe she's still here, you think, locking the door as you get inside. You unzip your hoodie and toss it on a chair as you pass through the kitchen, and you find her in your bedroom, sprawled out and asleep in one of your T-shirts.

The light's still on, so she must have been here a while just waiting for you. She didn't try to call you or anything. You wonder why as you carefully lie in bed next to her, watching as she sleeps. Forgetting about your own woes and focusing on your wife's is always so therapeutic for you. (You don't call yourself _Mother_ Russia just because it sounds badass.)

Your wife's beautiful face is still covered in medical tape, of course. You gingerly kiss the bridge of her nose, and she opens her eyes as you pull away.

She chuckles sleepily. "There you are…" Then she tries to nuzzle your chest, but she flinches in pain and grabs her nose. You can't help but sit up in alarm.

"Aah! Fuck, this really hurts now. It never hurts right away…"

You see a discarded ice pack on the night stand. Lena must have brought it in here. You reach over for it, feel it's still cold, and offer it to her. Lena rolls onto her back and balances it on her face, letting it cover her eyes in the process.

"Thanks, love." She sighs and you can hear the fatigue and disappointment in it.

"Of course, myshka." You try to comfort her by lying back down with her, massaging her head and temples, brushing her hair from her face. She blindly feels for your other hand and fidgets with your wiggling fingers on her stomach. You know she's asleep again when the movements eventually stop, and you keep her secure in your arms until you fall asleep too.

—

"Oh, come on! I can aim a gun without havin' ta smell anything!"

Your wife's nasally yelling wakes you up, and you find her at a window, a hand to her earpiece. You can barely make out Mercy's voice as they argue for another minute before Tracer stomps her foot in a tantrum. "Fine! Fine, but just for today…. I'll see you at training tomorrow… YES I WILL. Ugggh! You can't do this to me, doc!"

She gets disconnected without an answer and turns slowly to look at you, staring at her from bed.

"…..Mornin', love. Looks like I'm off today after all." She kind of looks around the bedroom awkwardly, bouncing in place, before returning her attention to you with a clap of her hands.

"So…. Wanna shag?"

You blink twice and rub your eye. You're not even fully awake. " _All day..?_ "


End file.
